Public Parks in Pittsburgh & Its Countryside 13
State parks and forests, national recreation areas, wildlife refuges and city parks.
-
Moraine State Park
Lake Arthur, a favorite of sailors, fills a valley once scarred by coal mines and oil wells, now restored as rolling woods and fields with beaches, cabins and a lakeside bike trail.
-
Raccoon Creek State Park
Spring wildflowers carpet the park's renowned Wildflower Reserve, Raccoon Lake has a beach and boating, and a short trail leads to the old Frankfort Mineral Springs.
-
Yellow Creek State Park
A broad lake known among birders for migrating ducks, loons and shorebirds, with a swimming beach, boating and trails near the route of the old Kittanning Path.
-
McConnells Mill State Park
A gorge carved by glacial meltwater, its creek churning past giant boulders, with an 1800s gristmill, a covered bridge, the short trail to Hell's Hollow Falls and whitewater for experts only.
-
Point State Park
At the tip of downtown, where the Allegheny and Monongahela meet to form the Ohio, with the great fountain, the Fort Pitt Museum and the 1764 Blockhouse from the frontier fort.
-
Ryerson Station State Park
A frontier fort of the 1790s gave its name to this park in steep, wooded hills near the West Virginia line, with a swimming pool, cabins, a campground and quiet woodland trails.
-
Hillman State Park
Rolling former strip-mine land reclaimed as woods and fields, managed largely for hunting but laced with trails used by hikers, horseback riders and mountain bikers.
-
Schenley Park
A big wooded park on the edge of the university district, with Phipps Conservatory, the trails and lake of Panther Hollow, a public golf course, a running track and an ice rink.
-
Frick Park
Wooded ravines and miles of trails make up the largest of the city's parks, a bequest from industrialist Henry Clay Frick, with an environmental center and a lawn bowling green.
-
Jennings Environmental Education Center
One of Pennsylvania's few remnants of prairie, bright with purple spikes of blazing star in late July and early August, and among the last homes of the rare eastern massasauga rattlesnake.
-
Allegheny Islands State Park
Three undeveloped islands in the Allegheny River, reached only by boat, where paddlers can pull up on wooded shores and watch for herons and other river wildlife.
-
Crooked Creek Lake Recreation Area
An Army Corps of Engineers flood-control lake in the hills of Armstrong County, used for boating, fishing and picnics by the water.
-
Hartwood Acres
A 1920s Tudor-style mansion and its stables sit amid rolling meadows and woods, with house tours, trails and summer concerts on the lawn.
